Modern buildings, including homes, offices, and industrial buildings, require a great deal of electrical cable to accommodate all of the various electrical accouterments that may now be desired. Besides the standard power circuits, low voltage lighting circuits, security alarm or fire warning systems, intercom circuits for voice communication, telephone circuits, and high frequency television circuits, there are often requirements for cable circuits which will transmit data in the gigabit frequency range, both within and outside of the building.
Electrical contractors and tradesmen have often installed electrical wiring in homes or industrial buildings in a sequence of separate and distinct projects. Wiring for electric power in the building might be done first. Then, for example, the intercom and security systems are installed. Subsequently wiring for telephone and high speed data circuits might be separate and additional projects. Those repetitious steps have been inefficient.
Standard industry practice has involved a great deal of work by workmen at the construction site to identify cable types as labelled by a manufacturer, connect each cable in its correct location, identify and make the proper performance tests, and record results of performance tests. Basic circuits such as those for firealarm systems or doorbells may require only simple tests such as for continuity and short circuits, but high speed data circuits in addition to various other tests require expensive equipment at the construction site to verify correct performance.
In the cable industry, and particularly when dealing with high-speed data cables, there is an industry standard process known as “Certification”. This involves testing the individual cable against an industry standard, such as TIA 568, as established by the Telecommunications Industry Association. Traditional certifiers are all built to test an individual cable with a frequency sweep through a broad range of frequencies, and must also make other measurements associated with the specifications set down under TIA 568. But even that standard process of certification cannot provide a 100% certainty that the cable after it has been connected as part of a network will perform as desired.
When high speed data circuits are required, both making the installation and demonstrating that performance goals have been met can be a daunting task. Utilizing expensive equipment is often necessary, but minimizing cost is often an even greater priority. And when some cables are intended to later be interconnected by patchcords or switchboards into a network system, the complexity of both making the installation reliable and meeting its performance requirements is greatly increased.
Prior art test instruments and procedures have been available for dealing with many different aspects of cable installation office buildings, industrial buildings, and homes. But comprehensive overall management of both technical and business aspects of such projects has apparently not been fully addressed.